


Deliverance

by ephemeralblossom



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Celebrations, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Extra Treat, Family, Future Fic, Gen, Ghosts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-25 23:29:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12543692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ephemeralblossom/pseuds/ephemeralblossom
Summary: The ghost that was once Robb Stark does not like weddings.





	Deliverance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blueteak](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueteak/gifts).



The ghost that was once Robb Stark does not like weddings.

He hovers in a corner, scowling at the wedding party. Those unfortunates who wander into his corner soon leave again, complaining of a draft. He takes some small joy in this. He was not often sardonic in life, but he has found that untimely death sours the stomach. 

The bride is the Queen of Westeros, the fire that has swept their land, the Targaryen returned. With the ferocity of her dragons, the rediscovered wisdom of the dragonglass, and the united power of the world, the White Walkers have been vanquished and the Wall rebuilt. Perhaps they will reappear someday, intent again on vanquishing the indolent South. Robb finds that he no longer cares overmuch; in many ways he feels more kin to them than to the celebrants before him. He too is a shade, an inhuman beast.

At the bride’s side is her groom, and Robb looks on him with mixed emotions. Once he called that man his brother. Now he is revealed to be no Stark, but Azor Ahai; and if those who do the royal pair homage do not see beyond his regal bearing to the lingering shadow of the graveclothes, Robb does. It is impossible to hide death from the dead. Aegon Targaryen, once Jon Snow, is as inhuman as Robb, though his heart beats anew. 

Robb watches the man who was his brother smile at his warrior bride, and feels an ache where his own heart had beat. He was a bridegroom once. Before. 

“You’re scaring people.”

The ghost does not realize at first that the words are directed at him. Humans do not generally perceive specters. Perhaps his brother Bran, the Three-Eyed Raven, would see past the veil of death and reach a welcoming hand to him, but he has stayed away from Bran. He does not want pity, here at the beginning of the spring. Let them forget.

“I warn you, I’m quite content to stand here talking to an eerily deserted corner all day until you deign to notice me.”

Robb turns. A young woman with a sharp face is looking straight at him, her eyes clear. “That’s better,” she says, and there is the faintest of smiles playing around her lips. 

Robb remembers that smile; he remembers the shrieks of her laughter, at Winterfell before it all changed. Her face no longer looks like it smiles often. It is a harsh face, still and watchful. “Arya.”

She shrugs. “A name as good as any other.”

“You’re changed,” he says. His voice feels rusty, a rasp in his nonexistent throat. 

She inclines her head, a small movement. “Speaks the shade.”

He wonders how she perceives him. He has never thought before what he must look like. He has only walked the earth, unquiet and restless, and longed for the end of his journey. The spring, he has thought, the spring will bring deliverance. And yet here is the spring, and still he has no peace. 

She presses her lips together. Were she more demonstrative, it might be a sigh. “We have all changed since Winterfell. You, Rickon, and our parents are gone. Bran is the Raven. Jon is as you see him. Sansa is the Queen in the North.”

“The dragon queen would not thank you for that,” Robb says, for even dead he knows treason when he hears it.

Her face is remote, as if it has been carved from wood. “The North remembers. Sansa will ever be Lady Stark, Queen in the North.”

“May she have more joy of it than I did,” he says, the terror of his last moments rising like mist before his eyes.

“Robb.”

The sound of his name in her voice is a shock, as bracing as the cold whisper of his death-chill must be to humankind. He looks at her, searching her face.

She is older now, and battle-tested. He can see the disciplined muscles of her body, and knows with the recognition of one warrior to another that she would be a formidable foe in battle. Yet more impressive than the weapon she has crafted of her body is the cold steel in her eyes, the quiet stone of her face, the hard plane of her gaze. 

He remembers the girl who used to leap in his arms, pleading to be taught archery, wheedling sweetmeats. He remembers her giggles and her boundless energy, her yearning to escape into the open air. He wonders where that girl, his little Arya, went. He wonders whether that Arya is as dead as he is.

“Arya,” he says.

Perhaps Arya senses something of the bittersweet sadness that pulls at him. Perhaps she hears the weight of his wraith’s years, or sees the way he looks at her, as if she is the ghost, not he. For the first time, her face softens, and he sees a glimpse of the sister he once knew.

“It is over, Robb,” she says, and her voice is almost gentle, or as gentle as she can be, this unsheathed sword of a woman. “Spring has come to Westeros.”

He knows that spring has come. He has seen the budding trees, the petals strewn for Azor Ahai to walk on, as his bride the Dragon Queen stoops down on dragonback to claim him. Their wedding has been a strange blend of peace treaty, alliance, and funeral, as Westeros grieves its winter’s dead and turns its face towards the dawning spring. 

Arya draws closer to him, until he could reach out and touch her, had he a hand. “I will protect them,” she says, her words ringing with the conviction of a vow. “I will protect Sansa, and Jon, and the memory of our family. You will not be forgotten, Robb Stark. I give you my oath.”

It is the spring breeze that touches him then, full of weak sunshine and the faint scent of flowers. He turns what was his face into it, fighting the urge to close his eyes.

“Be at peace, brother,” Arya says. “You have walked this earth in sorrow for too long. _Valar morghulis_. Be at peace.”

Her words loosen some tight knot inside him, and he feels lighter, freer. Yet her words only brighten the beckoning light; it is her smile, finally winning free, that is her final benediction.

He who was Robb Stark returns her smile.

And then he closes his eyes, and turns his face to the light.

***


End file.
